Egg Hiding Efficiency
by ShimeiValentine
Summary: Inui has never had an easter, and Kaidoh's sentimental side won't let him allow that. :3 InuKai


Title: Egg Hiding Efficiency

By: Shimei Valentine

Summary: I will post this early to get everyone in the mood for easter!! And to give everyone plenty of time to review. :3

Genre: Humor, romance

Warnings: shonen-ai, fluff, OOCness, and my attempt at wit.

Rated: PG

Disclaimer: I do not own prince of tennis or any of the characters

One Shot

* * *

Inui Sadaharu's parents did not feel the need to celebrate pointless holidays-well, what holidays they felt were pointless, anyway. Moreover, one of the holidays that they felt was the most illogical was Easter because why would anyone choose a day to take time painting eggs that everyone pretended came from rabbits and then hide them? The rabbit was a mammal for crying out loud, had fur, mammary glands, and did not lay eggs like a foul. And if for an instance, they did lay eggs once a year, why would you paint them and hide them rather than study them? It was completely idiotic and the Inui household never wasted their time with such a thing. They weren't against it, but they kept to themselves.

Their son, Sadaharu, was used to not having Easter, and it didn't seem abnormal to him for his classmates to participate and he didn't. So what if he didn't run around looking for eggs? It wasn't as if he was denied Christmas presents or anything cruel like that, he just didn't _do_ Easter. So who really cared? Well, Kaidoh Kaoru cared.

Inui barely recalled how the conversation started, but it was probably Kikumaru. He wanted to ask if the day after Easter they could skip practice because he would probably be sick with all the chocolate he would probably consume. Of course, Tezuka outright refused, and asked why he would consume so much chocolate on Easter anyway.

"Nya! That's what Easter is all about!" Kikumaru announced proudly, "I get chocolate from everyone in my family of little bunnies and chicks! But I feel kinda bad eating them, poor little things-"

"I'm finally old enough to hide eggs at my house instead of look for them!" Momoshiro announced aloud to Echizen, who just rolled his eyes, apparently unimpressed.

"Last time I looked for eggs was, like, five years old." Echizen lied. Truthfully, he liked to take Karupin around the yard with him and look for the eggs.

"Yeah, well Oishi's coming to my house on Easter and he'll help me beat my little cousin in finding the eggs! She allllllways wins!" Eiji pouted, draping and arm around Oishi dramatically. He recovered quickly, however, and began to bounce excitedly again. "What about you Inui? Do you paint numbers on your eggs? Nya-ha!"

"Eiji that's not nice." Oishi reprimanded gently.

"Nya, sorry Inui."

"I don't have Easter." Inui responded simply. He was quite used to giving the explanation to his fellow classmates, and was ready to be questioned why already.

Eiji's eyes looked as though they were going to fall out of his head, "HUH?! Why not, why not, Inui?" Eiji pestered intensely.

Oishi looked nervously at Inui and Eiji, "Eiji, it might be personal!!"

"Yeah, Inui-Senpai might be scared of eggs." Echizen snickered.

"Echizen!" Oishi said desperately.

"Well that's one thing that we know isn't in Inui Juice then." Momo commented, smiling at his own wit.

"MOMOSHIRO! Y-you three, ten laps!" Oishi said louder. "Inui, I'm so sorry-!"

"It's alright." Inui said sincerely, "they didn't offend in anyway."

"So do we still have to run the laps, fukubucho?" Momoshiro asked.

"Yes you do. Now go." Oishi sighed, hating to be mean.

After practice, Inui started for home with his book bag slung messily over his shoulder, his mind actually blank. He enjoyed the weather of the spring as he walked, and wished everyday was this considerate to his tennis play. He nearly tripped over the drinking fountains, but dodged just in time to run into his kohai. He stood up and helped Kaidoh up, frowning at the mud that he had caused to stain the snake-like boy's bandana. "I'm sorry, Kaidoh, I wasn't watching-"

"I was the one just standing there." Kaidoh muttered, a light blush on his face.

"Ah, well, I'll see you later, then." Inui began to walk again when he heard wet sneakers move and felt his sleeve being pulled.

"Senpai, I…overheard you today talking to Kikumaru-Senpai, I'm sorry. But, you said you had never had an Easter before?" Kaidoh refused to look at Inui, but Inui smiled at him all the same.

"Yes, I did say that."

Kaidoh looked surprised, as if he had expected Inui to say he had heard wrong. "Then, Senpai, you have to have one!" he looked up at Inui defiantly, "you need to have an Easter!"

"Kaidoh, I appreciate your concern for me, but it really is alright. It's just fine with me to not have an Easter, I know primarily what people do on Easter, and it's not a necessity for me." Inui moved to remove his sleeve from Kaidoh's grip, but Kaidoh refused.

"It's…not fine with me." Kaidoh's eyes burnt into his Senpai, as Kaidoh reached into Inui's pocket, Inui jerking in surprise. Kaidoh pulled out Inui's cell phone, handing it to Inui, a blush on his face. "Senpai, I would like you to have an Easter today."

Inui took his phone with some reluctance, never seeing Kaidoh act this way before. He wanted to pull out his notebook, and now his brain was overwhelmed with thoughts in comparison to just five minutes ago. Inui took the hint and dialed his home phone, "Mother? This is Sadaharu. If you don't mind, I would like to go to a friend's house for Easter celebrations." Inui listened for a moment, then hung up. "She said it was fine, Kaidoh."

"Fshuuu…" Kaidoh hissed nervously as he quickly detached himself from Inui's sleeve, making Inui chuckle. Kaidoh turned away quickly, and began to silently lead the way to his house. Inui followed obediently, finding himself happy for the opportunity for notes on Kaidoh and his family on Easter; of course not tennis notes, but the common personal notes that he took about things that interested him in the people he knew.

When they arrived, Inui noticed that Kaidoh's mother, brother, and father greeted them in a happy and airy manner, quite unlike the socially tense Kaidoh that he witnessed everyday at school. Kaidoh responded almost as equally carefree, and Inui was aware that he had stepped into Kaidoh's comfort zone, and he would perhaps get to witness a new Kaidoh.

"Mom, this is Inui-Senpai, from the tennis team." Kaidoh's words gained more tenseness at this introduction, signaling that his comfort zone was not quite the same with Inui around.

"Oh! Hello, Inui-san." Hozumi smiled, "I am Hozumi, this is my youngest son, Hazue, and my husband, Shibuki. Welcome."

"Honored, Kaidoh-san." Inui bowed.

"I assume you are spending Easter with us, then?" Hozumi asked gently.

"Yes. You see, Kaidoh thought that I should have an Easter since I had never had one before."

Hozumi laughed a little, causing Kaidoh to blush. "That's definitely my Kaoru for you."

"Inui!! Come and paint eggs with me!" Hazue ran up to grab Inui's hand, but a sharp glare from Kaidoh stopped him in his tracks.

Kaidoh looked at Inui, "come on Senpai, I'll show you how to paint eggs."

The three of them headed to Kaidoh's kitchen table, where everything was already set up. Kaidoh told Inui the basics, and Inui began to work silently on his first egg. "Kaidoh? Are you supposed to name the eggs?"

Kaidoh tried not to look at his Senpai funnily, "I suppose you can, if you want, Inui-Senpai."

Inui's first egg looked as though a rainbow had thrown up on it, and he couldn't seem to fix it. Kaidoh wanted to snicker at the look Inui was giving his egg, but he refrained. "Did you name that one, Inui-Senpai?"

"No. It would be an insult to whoever I named it after." Inui poked it defiantly, getting some paint on his finger from the still wet egg.

"That's not true. I like it, Senpai." Kaidoh lied, wondering afterwards why he felt like he had to say that. "Name it after me."

"Really, Kaidoh?" Inui smiled a little, examining his egg again. "Well, alright."

After many more attempts, Inui had gotten much better, and had simply made eight more eggs for the sake of naming them after the rest of the team, including himself. Kaidoh smiled at Inui's completed collection, and when they dried, he asked if his parents would hide them so Inui and Hazue could go and find them.

"But Kaoru, I thought you wanted to hide this year?" his mother asked.

Kaidoh had a faint blush on his face, accompanied by a hiss. "I…need to help Inui-Senpai. I don't want him to lose to Hazue."

His parents hid the eggs, and the three boys set out in their back yard to look. Inui had a bunny-shaped basket, and Kaidoh wanted so bad to smile and maybe even laugh. Inui apparently thought it as regular Easter requirement, and failed to realize how childish the tall 3rd year looked.

Inui succeeded in looking in all of the wrong places, including the rain gutter on the house. Kaidoh saw that Hazue had already found two eggs, and Kaidoh was worried that it would discourage Inui if he lost to an eleven year old. "Inui-Senpai, they're not going to be in difficult places like the rain gutter!"

Inui blinked curiously at Kaidoh, subconsciously swinging the empty bunny-basket over his shoulder. "Why not? It is a competition."

"I-I dunno, but they're not!" Kaidoh said, flustered at his own stupid answer. "Not everyone is as tall as you."

"Ah. So it's a fair competition for all statures?" Inui examined Kaidoh and realized that the 2nd year had removed the muddy bandana, and his soft black hair was being teased by the gentle spring wind. Inui shifted his eyes away, thinking how adorable his kohai looked.

"Supposed to be." Kaidoh nodded, glad he had gotten through to his Senpai.

Inui had now found two eggs, and he was really getting into the spirit. "I have Tezuka and Fuji, which are the most difficult tennis players, so the rest must be easy to find!"

Kaidoh raised an eyebrow, "Senpai, they're not in order of difficulty like that."

"hm? But it would make sense that they would be, I mean, these were hard eggs to find."

"But my parents don't know the ranking of our tennis players. And I don't think they'd do it that way anyway."

"Oh. Well, it would make much more sense that way." Inui stated in an as-a-matter-of-fact manner.

Kaidoh almost wanted to say that it didn't need to make sense because small children played this game, and they didn't feel the need to name their eggs the names of their tennis regulars. "Lets keep looking, Senpai."

At the very end, Inui had four eggs, and Hazue had four eggs. Inui now possessed the Tezuka, Fuji, Eiji, and Ryoma eggs, while Hazue had found the Momo, Taka, Oishi, and Inui eggs. Which meant the only one left to find was the Kaidoh egg. Inui was, needless to say, determined. "I will find you, Kaidoh-egg!" Inui took off running across Kaidoh's yard, and Kaidoh chuckled lightly behind him.

After about five minutes of looking, neither Hazue or Inui had found the egg. Kaidoh was beginning to wonder if his parents had even hid that one when Inui made a noise of joy. Kaidoh watched as Inui found his mother's kitten statue, and lifted it up to reveal a hole in the bottom of the statue, hiding the last egg.

Kaidoh walked over curiously, "Inui-Senpai, how did you know?"

"I knew this game had some kind of logic to it. The Kaidoh egg was near the kitten, just like in real life." Inui smiled setting the last egg in his bunny basket, as Hazue congratulated him. Kaidoh was lost in his own embarrassment that his Senpai knew so much about him that he found the egg before his own little brother.

The sun began to set and Kaidoh was allowed by Inui to smash the Momo egg on the sidewalk, as Hazue laughed at his brother's antics. Inui took the rest of the eggs with him as Kaidoh walked his Senpai home. Inui's brain was thinking at a gentle pace as he looked over at Kaidoh every once in awhile, Kaidoh smiling genuinely back.

"it's a real shame that I cannot keep this egg." Inui held the Kaidoh egg up in the sunlight, "It has come to mean a lot to me, but it will rot, like all eggs, if I keep it."

Kaidoh blushed deeply. Surely Inui meant that it was important because it was his first ever egg? "You are welcome to make another next year."

"That's impossible. This can't be duplicated-" Inui placed it back into the basket gently, "-this Kaidoh egg."

"Surely with work, it can be?"

"But it wouldn't mean nearly as much to _me_." Inui stopped, looking Kaidoh in the eyes, as Kaidoh did the same. "I only wish…that I had the real thing. Much more precious than a perishable painted egg."

"Inui-Senpai, why don't you just take it? No one has claimed the real thing yet."

"Allow me to do just that-" Inui gently pressed his lips against Kaidoh's for a few moments, before pulling respectfully away. He smiled at his Kohai, and Kaidoh felt his heart leap in his chest. "This is the last time I will ever need to search. I have found the prize that values above all the others."

"I…love you, Senpai."

"I love you too, Kaoru." he turned to his door and opened it half way, "Bye, Kaoru." He found he loved using Kaidoh's first name.

"Bye Sadaharu." Kaidoh found that he loved his Inui's first name more than another first name he had ever heard.

"Did you have a good Easter, Sadaharu?"

"Yes mother."

"Did you find it as worthless as we find it?" his father asked from his kitchen.

"Not quite. But I'm glad we've never had an Easter."

The End


End file.
